This is my field report from the four day trip to the Negev. The Negev is the region south of the Hill Country. In the bible it is just a small section of land but currently in Israel it refers to every bewteen the Hill Country and the southern border.
Because the field report is rather lengthly and i would not even want to read it, I will write i brief overview of what we did in the last few days. It will brief but you can get an idea of the things that we did. If you want to read the whole thing i have it on here as well.
The first day we went to 4 different places. We started at Beer sheva. This is supposedly the place that Abraham dug a well and planted a tree next to it. It may or may not be that place but it is still a good example of an old city because there is a lot of remains there. Also they found an altar to a pagan god their. It has four horns and looks rather weird. It was destroyed when they found it and there are a few different people (Hezekiah or Josiah) that probably did the destroying. Our next stop was Arad. There is a old settlement, Early Bronze Age, and a newer settlement, late bronze age, both at this site. There is all a temple like structure to God and another pagan god. The temple is set up almost exactly like the bible tells Israel to set theirs up like. This city acted as a protection into the hill country and was fortified by Solomon. After that we went to Ben Gurion (first President of Israel) house. It was a modest little place with a large library. Then we went to Ain Avdat. There we did a fun hike into a canyon. There is no real biblical significance but it is just a fun hike. The land was really cool in the canyon. then we ended the day at Avdat. This was a town along the trade route from the red sea to the Med. It was an important city and really grew up because it prospered. The people their believed Jesus to be the Messiah. That night we when to Mitzpeh Ramon. It is like a mini grand canyon. We just looked out over it and awed at God's glory. It was a great view. We stayed there that night.
Going into Beer-Sheva
Beer -Sheva
The guys describing Arad
A well at Arad
Camels
Ben Gurion's Library
Our hike in Ain Avdat
Christina on a donkey. I just noticed that it looks like Mary and Joseph with the guy walking in front
A view at Avdat
Christina at Avdat
Avdat
An Ibex
The next day we went to The wilderness of Paran and did some devo's. This is part of the place that the Israelites wandering in the 40 years. It was really neat to read the accounts in Numbers and Deut while sitting in this region. It was not a comfortable place to be for 40 minutes let alone 40 years. After that we went to Red Canyon. It was another fun hike. It really was a fun one.We got to climb down through a canyon and again feel the heat of the desert. We did a quick lookout in Egypt. We saw the border fence and the guard on the other side. It was neat to see into Egypt but not go there, especially now. Then we went to Eilat. We did some snorkling there which was a nice break from the fast moving pace of IBEX. Eilat is on the Red sea, which is really the Reed sea. It is the ports for Israel into the Indian Ocean. It was a beautiful little town. We got a very nice hotel that night and went down onto the boardwalk to see a little bit of the town.
Red Cyn: the hike
Christina and Ellen on a rock in the cyn
A video showing the border of Egypt and Israel. The fence is the border
Eilat; snorkling
Eilat
More Eilat
And more Eilat
Out of my bedroom window
Sammy Jo is a truck
the girls wanted a picture with this guy
The next day we went to Timnah. There we saw the Tabernacle model. this was really cool to see up close because it gave us a picture of what it looks like back in biblical times. It is portable because they moved in 43 times in 40 years. We also did some touring of the smelting pots used to smelt down copper and the copper mines. Then we went to a zoo. We saw all sorts of animals. A leopard, hyenas, wolves, snakes, vultures, owls, bats, ostriches, and wild donkeys. We also got to take a tour in the bus through the land they have. The fenced in an area to let animals run wild and they put a road through it so people can see then in their natural habitat. That night we stayed at Masada on the dead sea. We all got to go down into the moon dust. this was fun because it was like walking and rolling in flour. It was really soft stuff and we eventually all rolled in it and got really dirty.
The next morning we got up at 5 and climbed up Masada to see the sunrise from the top. It was a really fun thing to see even though it wasn't the best sunrise. Masada was the last holdout of Herod the Great when the Romans took over Israel in the 1st century. After that we went to Qumran. We saw the places that the dead sea scrolls were found. We saw Cave #4 were most of them were found as well as cave #1, the first one found. We climbed up and into Cave #1. Qumran was a very interesting place to be at. Maybe my favorite of the Negev trip. After that we went back up to the Moshav.
If you want to read the full version it is below. That was a quick, very quick run though without Biblical connection. You choose:)
Negev Field Trip
Day #1-Wednesday March 16
We started our field trip Wednesday morning with our first stop being Beer-Sheva. Beer-Sheva is located in the biblical Negev, which means the small 30 miles by 6 miles piece of land directly under the hill country. The modern Negev is all the land south of the Hill Country, but in Biblical times it was much smaller. Beer-Sheva is directly in the middle of the Biblical Negev. There have been some important finds at Beer-Sheva along with some important events. The first thing they found was a 4-horned altar. They found it in a destroyed state. This altar is very telling because of its structure. We know that it is a pagan altar because of the stones. In Ex. 20:5 God tells the people that the altars are to be made without using cut stones. The structure found in Beer-Sheva had cut stones all over it. This is a good clue to it being a pagan altar. Also, there was not even supposed to be an altar there. God commands that they are to have one place for an altar and that place was Jerusalem, not Beer-Sheva. The people here could have thought they were worshipping god, but they were not doing anything of the sort. There are a few options as to who destroyed the altar. The battle is between Hezekiah and Josiah. In 2 Kings 18 we read that Hezekiah removed the high places and altars throughout Judea. And in 2 Kings 20 we see that Josiah broke downs the high places from Geba to beer-Sheva. To me it is a toss-up and the fact is that it was destroyed because it was a false altar, and in the end that is what matters. The other significant events to take place here were involving Abraham. We read that Abraham in Gen. 21 came to Beer-Sheva and dug a well ad planted a tree nearby. Interestingly enough, a well was found with a tree next to it just outside the city walls. The only problem is that the well dates to 100 years after the time of Abraham. The set up is the same for what Abraham did as Beer-Sheva. The other problem is that there has not been any pottery from the time of Abraham found in Beer-Sheva, which means that this is not the right place, or they haven’t found any yet. The pottery found dates to a time after Abraham. The thought is that there is another Beer-Sheva that this happened at. That is very much possible, but I, in my uneducated archeological mind, seem to think that it could be possible for this to be the site and that the well and the town of Abraham’s time either was torn down of rebuilt since the time of Abraham. Abraham lived a long time ago and if the city continued to inhabit people the walls and structures, including the well, was bound to be rebuilt of at least fortified. We know that Abraham’s son Isaac re-dug the well Abraham dug so this means that modifications did happen. That is my thinking, take it or leave it.
Next stop was Arad, which is also in the Biblical Negev east of Beer-Sheva. The significance of Arad is that it acts as a guard to the Hill Country. This city sits right as the foot hills of the Hill Country and is a city that the people in the Hill Country like to hold. Solomon fortified this city because he knew this important fact in 950 BC. Also this city connects trade from the Dead Sea to Gaza so it was an important stop. Arad has 2 main settlements. The first is an Early Bronze Age (3300-2300 BC) city. This is the site to go to if you want to learn about Early Bronze Age because the remains are on the surface. There was not much digging to discover the remains from the Early Bronze Age time. We actually ate our lunch inside an Early Bronze Age house. The other time period is the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC). Joshua would have fought against Arad in this time period. A temple was found in Arad. In the temple they worshiped God and another “god”. They combined the two. They thought this was proper, and they usually worshiped “gods” in pairs. The temple resembled the temple of the Israelites. There is no spring in Arad so they had deep well and cisterns. There was one deep well found that dates to 1000 BC and then to the time of Herod the Great. Herod the Great added on to the top of it to make it deeper.
Next we went to Sde Boker. This is the home of David Ben Gurion. He was the first president of Israel when it became a state in 1948. He had a small residence in the Negev because he believed the Negev to be the place of Israel future. He moved down there as an effort to encourage other to do the same. The problem is the lack of Water in the Negev. There is not much water there so surviving becomes challenging. He had a small house with a big library because he was quite the educated man. He read many books and tried to become educated on many topics.
Next we went on a hike in Ain Avdat. This was a beautiful canyon with running water. There we learned about flint and why it was used in circumcision. Also we climbed up the side of the hill in stairs and ladders. It was quite the expierence but a fun one at that. Then after the hike we went to the city of Avdat. This is an important city because it connects the trade route from the Sadia Arabian desert to the Mediterranean Sea. The Nabateans were the only ones that could make this desert cross so they had good control over the situation. They built this city up as a stop along the trade route. The inhabitants of the city became Christians and built a place of worship there. They also built a place to do baptisms. It was quite the city. There were not any others cities close by so this gave them freedom. That night we went to Mitzpeh Ramon. It is a huge canyon overlook. The canyon is very deep and wide and once was full of water. We stayed and took pictures for awhile and then went back to the bus and to the youth hostel for the night.
Day #2- Thursday March 17
We started off the second day with a devotional time in the wilderness of Paran. This was a really good time to sit in the middle of the desert and to read about the Israelites complaining and turning from God is Numbers 14 and Deuteronomy 8. We sat in the desolate wilderness, I would call it a desert personally, and read these chapters on our own. The Israelites had forgotten God and what he had done for them in Egypt and they even wanted to go back into Egypt because they thought it was better there. They had forgotten the provisions of the Lord in their lives and that he promised them land and that he would take care of them. That is a great promise and we often look at them as crazy for turning from God. As I sat in the hot desert-like wilderness I could see why they could have loss track. God promised them a good land flowing with milk and honey and here they are wandering around in the hot wilderness without a home or place of their own. We can see now, as we look at the whole picture that it was all a part of God’s plan. I see this whole idea incredibly applicable to my life and I think most Christian’s life. We often lose sight of God’s sovereignty in the midst of hard times or challenging things but in hindsight we see the necessity of that time. We forget that God has promised us certain things, for the Israelites it was land and for us it is eternal life, and we get caught up in our current situation. God is still in control and will always come through on his promises even when it seems like the desert wandering/hard time will never end. That is my devotional form the wilderness of Paran, which is where the Israelites would have wandered at some point.
Out next stop was a hike in Red Canyon. This was a fun hike and a break to get out of the bus. We went down this tight canyon. They had ladders and hand rails to go through it. It was quite a fun time and it brought out the little boy in many of the guys. We were all over the rocks and climbing all around. It was a fun time. Again we felt the heat of the desert, and were glad to get back on the bus. We made our way to the southern border of Israel. Before we got there we made a quick stop to look into Egypt. We saw the border between Egypt and Israel. After seeing the huge wall guarding the Mexico/America border this looked like more of a fence than a border. I have seen bigger fences around people’s property than this border. It was a average fence with barbed wire on each side. It was nothing special. There was a man in the guard shack on the Egypt side of the border. He was “guarding” it, even though we were more than likely the first people he saw all day. He came down and talked to us and asked for water. We didn’t have any but the other people there did and gave him some. We talked about Pharaohs for a little bit an also the Israelites coming out of Egypt. It didn’t look like a whole other country beside the fact that there was a border the landscape continued to be the same.
After that we made our way to Eilat. Eilat is in Israel on the Red Sea. Fun fact; the Red Sea is really the Reed Sea. I like that because Reed is my middle name and my Grandparents name. This is an important site because it gives Israel access to the Indian Ocean, which opens up more trade opportunities. Israel has not also had the land all the way to the Reed Sea. They only have had that land when they had a large and strong Government. There were a few points in history when that was the case. In Eilat we went to a beach and after eating pizza we did some snorkeling. It was a beautiful day and a great place to snorkel. There were all sorts of colors of fish there and the water was incredibly clear. We hung out on the beach and did some snorkeling and relaxed. It was a nice break from the constant flow of IBEX. As Drew said, “We are getting class credit for this.” After that we went to our hotel, which was also very nice. We had a nice view off of our balcony of the Reed Sea and the city of Eilat. That night we went into town and walked the boardwalk full of shops and exciting things to see. It was a much needed break of an afternoon.
Day #3- Friday March 18
We started our trip on Friday by driving up the Aravah. This is the Rift Valley, or the valley south of the Dead Sea that connects Jordan to Israel. In Biblical times the people that lived where Jordan is today were not very friendly with Israel. I think God even hinted at this before Joshua went into Israel. When Moses was leading the Israelites around the desert they came to Edom and were going to go through Edom because they wanted to enter the promise land north of the Dead Sea near Jericho. When they started through Edom the King of Edom denied them access making them go all the way south around Edom and then to the place where they would enter the city. Edom has a natural protection from the enemies in that their hills are very steep. They reminded me of the Sierra Nevada’s they are steep cutting hills which stand pretty tall. After a few more words on Edom and there history with Israel we went to Timnah.
Timnah is where the model of the tabernacle is located. We got a tour from a Messianic tour guide, which is a blessing and rare. She related all of the items in the tabernacle to Jesus and what he came to do. Something I thought was neat about this part was that she said in Jewish life if a child dies the father and mother rips the child’s clothes. God ripped the temple curtain when his son died. This showed us that now we have access to God though Jesus but also that it was God’s son that died and that it was easy for God. In thought that was interesting to things about. The tabernacle was amazing to see. I pictured it to be more permanent than it was. I don’t know why because the tabernacle was moved 43 times in the 40 years of wandering in the desert. That is pretty often and it had to be somewhat portable to do that. The model was good to see because everything was to size and we got to see what it really was like.
After seeing the tabernacle model we went to a place where we did a small hike up on top of a cliff. It was just a good view of Timnah but as far as a can remember it was one of those things Benj tells us is “just for fun.” There Austin and Heather and Benj ran into one of their old friends Dr. Sigler, a teacher at Moody. Then we went to a place that they would have smelted copper. We saw the copper mines and the holes that they dug in looking for copper. It was very incredible seeing the work that took places without modern tools. There were 11 mining camps that date back to the Calcolithic period (4300 -3300 BC). There is imagery in Jeremiah 6 and in Ezekiel 22 about refining copper and how that relates to certain things. There was a monopoly on copper by the Philistines and this was along the route to the Coastal Plain.
After that we had one more stop in Timnah, which was the mushroom rock. There we initially learning about copper mining and then we went out to the mushroom rock. It is just a rock in the shape of a mushroom. We also did some races out by the rock. It was a fun time.
After Timnah we went to the Hai Bar. This was a natural wildlife zoo. They had wolves, leopards, hyenas, snakes, owls, vultures, and even bats. This was a fun way to see all the things that are in the wildlife there. We walked through it and then we got back onto the bus and did a drive through of the land they have. It was called a safari and we drove on this dirt path. We saw ostriches, lots of horns animals (I forgot their name), and a few wild donkeys. It was fun to see them in their natural habitat.
After that we climbed back onto the bus and after stopping to get lunch at a diary farm, we took a 2 hours bus ride to our next and final hostel at Masada. Once we were in Masada we went to our room, got dinner, and then went down into the “moon dust.” This is really soft dusty flour like sand. If you fall in it you will be covered. We walked around for awhile. Drew rolled his ankle of a rock because it was also pretty rocky and was carried back. We then found a place and Austin gave a very nice devotional on not worrying. It was a good reminder that god was in control of my life and that he would provide way to get things done and provide for all my needs. Reminded me of Matthew 6 when Jesus says that God takes care of the flowers, so too will be take of you. Like Austin said, it is something we all know, but at the same time we need the constant reminder of it. We laid on our back and looked at the stars for some time and then sang some songs.
Day #4- March 19
This is our last and final day on our Negev field trip. It started early. Most of the group got up at 5 in the morning and took the trek up the hill of Masada to watch the sunrise. It was fun and memorable time. We were in the desert so it was cold in the least. Once we got to the top we saw the sun come up over the hills of Jordan off to the east. This wasn’t the best sunrise I had seen because the clouds decided to come out that day and cover our view, but it still was great being up there. Masada was the last holdout of Herod the Great. It was his vacation place but it turned into a fortress when the Romans were ridding Israel of the Jews. About 900 people committed suicide at Masada before the Romans got to them. The Romans built a siege ramp on the least steep western side, but it still took them a few months to build it. After coming down from Masada and grapping a few more hours of sleep we left the hostel and went to Qumran.
Qumran is the site of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There are 11 caves that scrolls were found in surrounding the city of Qumran. The remains of the city have also been excavated. The people that probably lived in Qumran were the Essenes. They were known for their solitude form the rest of the world as well as their ritual purity. There have been many cleansing bath found on site so that seems to point to the Essenes living there. There have also been tables found on site that seem to be writing tables. They think that they also did some writing and copying like a scribe would. They obviously did some writing because of the scrolls found. Some have said that they think the scroll are from Jerusalem and hid by the people of Qumran in these caves, but it makes more sense that the people of Qumran did the writings and hid them.
We saw cave number four. This was the “mother load” of all eleven caves. It contained lots of the writings found in Qumran. It was not the first cave found though. The archeologists were looking for more caves after the first was found in hope of finding something like this. They did not end up finding it but a Nabatean found the cave. The Nabateans know that there is money in these scrolls so they went looking too, and found cave four. There were thousands of scroll fragments found in cave four, about 200 of them were biblical. A fragment of every book of the bible was found except for the book of Esther; the Old Testament that is.
The writing found in Qumran and range from a manual of how they are to live in the Qumran community to Biblical texts. They also found Apocrypha writings and some others writings that they didn’t know were in existence. The writing style of the scroll is similar to the writing style of the New Testament authors since they were written in around the same time.
There are attempts to connect John the Baptist with the village of Qumran, but they are wrong. People say that because John was a Baptist he was really concerned with ritual purity and so where the people of Qumran. The problem is that the people of Qumran did not believe in Jesus and also John’s Baptist was a baptism into Jesus, not for ritual cleansing. His message was repent and be baptized, not to become ritually clean.
We then went to the first cave found by the people. The story of how this cave goes like this: A shepherd lost some sheep and was looking in different caves for his sheep. He would through a rock into the cave and try to scare the sheep out. He through the rock into this cave and heard a crash and breaking of pottery. He went in to check it out and found all these scrolls in these pots. He sold them and made money and then they got into the hands of the right people. This story is a bit of a stretch because the cave was quite a way up the hill and it would be quite the task of the sheep to climb the hill and hide in the cave. The rocks are like gravel and not easy to climb up. Also I do not know why someone would have sheep in this desolate region where there is not much fresh water or greenery to eat. To me I think this story is doubtful.
Qumran was destroyed in 68 A.D. by the Romans when they rid the country of any sort of possible rebellion against their rule. The people of Qumran would probably be the last people to rebel but they didn’t want anyone remaining that might.
After Qumran we grabbed some lunch and then head up into the Hill Country to the Moshav.
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